The Eyes of Others Read online

  Grimman stops talking and waits for me to respond. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. All the favors he thinks he’s done for me pale in comparison to what happened in the days and months leading up to it. He may have a selective memory, but I don’t.

  “Are you going to say anything?” he asks, not getting a response out of me. “Fine. I know you feel responsible for what happened, but a lot of agents have walked down the same path you’re on. They found a way back. I still think you can too.”

  “So, you’re not firing me?”

  “I’m glad I finally have your attention. No, I’m not firing you, as much as I think that’s what you want me to do. If you want out, you’ll have to resign. I am placing you on suspension without pay, though.”

  “What good do you think that’ll do?” It’d be easier if he just put me out of my misery.

  “You need to find yourself, Zach, and you need to do it fast. We’re facing an unprecedented threat to this country. The Islamic State is strong and growing stronger. There is a possibility they have informants in our military and intelligence agencies right now. We’re going to need every agent here doing the job the American people entrust them to do. I hope you’ll be back at your post when the trumpets sound. Do you understand?

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Good. We’re done here. Turn in your badge and your gun, and then you’ll be escorted from the building. Give me a call when you’re ready to be considered for reinstating. Now, get out of my office.”

  * * *

  “The sidelines are a bad place to be right now,” the suit says, climbing onto the barstool next to me.

  The District of Columbia is filled with the same dive bars that dot every big city in America. This one is no different. Sporting aging furniture, seventies décor, and a cranky, overweight bartender, it’s the perfect place to find the bottom of a bottle in peace on a Saturday. Or so I thought. People keep finding me here.

  “What did you say?” I slur in the general direction of the unwanted visitor.

  “You heard me.”

  “Do I know you? It’s important, because I want to know whose name to put on the headstone when I bash your skull in.” The other nice thing about dive bars is the other three people here don’t even look up at the comment. They know enough to leave it alone.

  “Save the bravado, I hate angry drunks. Scotch, rocks,” he tells the bartender, who decides in a fit of ambition to do his job without argument.

  “You didn’t answer my question, pal.”

  “You remember me, Zach. We travel in the same circles. I’m Garrett Turner.”

  I recognize him now. He’s a pompous ass, and another bureaucrat climbing the career ladder. I’d like to think he’s competent, but like most of the “professionals” at his level, he knows politics better than he knows his job.

  “You’re an analyst with Defense Intelligence,” I tell him to get under his skin. I know damn well he’s more than an analyst.

  “I’m a deputy director now,” he corrects, unamused by my demoting him. He takes a sip of the scotch and grimaces, trying to determine just how watered down it is.

  “Good for you. What do you want?” I ask impatiently, still slurring every other word.

  “A drink.”

  “Yeah, right. How did you know I was benched?”

  “D.C. is a small town, Zach, and our agencies are even smaller. Our job is to take raw data and convert it into something useful. The data we got on you is you were suspended without pay.”

  Is this guy for real? Even for an intelligence hack, the size of this guy’s ego could fill the Verizon Center. Now I’m losing whatever patience I had when I started this.

  “And now you’re here for the useful part?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling.”

  “I’m not here to sell you anything. I’m here to make you an offer.”

  “Oh, yeah, what’s that?” I ask, firing back the rest of my drink and signaling the bartender for another.

  “Redemption.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I have a little problem I’d like you to help with,” Turner offers after the bartender refills my glass and walks back to the far corner of the bar.

  “Are you stupid, or just ignorant? You know I’m suspended. Go through channels. I’m sure―”

  “This is a sensitive matter I would prefer not to make official. I need some … off the books assistance.”

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “Oh, Zach, believe me, I’m deadly serious.”

  Was that a dig on my last mission? Is this his idea of offering me redemption? I suddenly want to pick this guy up and pile drive him into the ground.

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, pal. You have some balls for even asking me. We’re not friends, and I’m not that desperate.”

  “You’ve been suspended without pay. What little money you do have you’re drinking away in this shit hole. That’s all before the gambling problem you’ve developed and the alimony payment to your ex―”

  “I get the point, but if you think I’m going to let you exploit my issues for whatever reason, you’re out of your mind. Now, I’m losing my sense of humor about all this. It’s time for you to leave before I show you the door the hard way.”

  “Okay,” Turner mutters as he finishes his scotch and slaps a twenty on the bar. “The next round’s on me. Think it over. You’re not a man with a lot of options, and I’m not asking you to compromise your integrity. In fact, it may help you get it back. I’ll even make it worth your while in the process.”

  “I told you to go,” I reply.

  “Yes, you did. Call me when you change your mind,” he says, sliding a business card in my shirt pocket before making his way out of the bar.

  .

  ~ ChAPTER 12 ~

  Director Colby Washington

  The intelligence business is a round-the-clock, seven days a week operation. The bad guys don’t stop just because of a weekend, so neither do we. Schedules are manipulated to ensure coverage while still giving employees days off, but that doesn’t always apply to those in leadership positions. The threat from the Islamic State is growing and, coupled with an investigation of a possible breach of classified information, the director of the DIA has most of the senior personnel working today.

  “Come,” I bark when I hear the rap on my door.

  The door opens and Garrett walks in, closing the door behind him. I may have instructed my secretary to make him wait if she was here today. Unfortunately, she’s not often required to work on Saturdays.

  “Where the hell have you been all afternoon?” I demand, making him well aware that I noticed his absence.

  “I had to pay a visit to a friend.”

  Part of me wants to ask if he was off having a tryst with some married staffer at Treasury. More likely, he rented a low-rate streetwalker for a couple of hours. I decide against inquiring further and leave it to my imagination. He wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway.

  “Do that on your own time. We have a crisis brewing and I expect my deputy to be working, not out making social calls.”

  “It was work related, not a social call. I was following up on Hollinger.” That got my attention.

  “And?”

  “And there’s a problem.”

  I stop typing and lean back in my chair, eyeing my deputy. I have no idea what he’s been up to. My eyes follow him as he moves to the chair directly in front of my desk, sits down and makes himself comfortable.

  “I talked to some friends from some of our sister agencies, and apparently Hollinger has reached out over the past year, in some way, to all of them. He ignored your warnings. It’s not speculation that he was, anymore. It’s a fact, and it will be a fact when the FBI gets wind of it and finds out he’s still investigating despite our warning,” Garrett informs me with a smug smile.

  A s
hiver runs down my spine. This is not the kind of negative visibility I need right now. The stakes are much higher than a year and a half ago when I hired him knowing he might still poke around on his own. Hollinger wouldn’t be stupid enough to be still asking questions with what’s going on, would he? Or is Garrett just telling me that to advance his own agenda?

  “Damn, this guy is turning into a pain in the ass.”

  “I would be feeling some buyer’s remorse if I were you,” Garrett opines, alluding to my hiring him in the first place. I know where he is driving the conversation, but I might as well let him think I’m in the dark about what he wants.

  “What do you think should be done about him?” I ask.

  “Pack his crap and toss it out on the street with him.”

  That was predictable. Garrett would like nothing more than to have me follow that advice. Now I’m convinced the information he’s feeding me is manufactured. Unfortunately, it would take me too long to prove it. There is just no way to know who he talked to, and he would never hand me that information even if it was true.

  Terminating an analyst poking around various counterespionage groups for information at the beginning of an agency-wide investigation into leaks of classified information is not a promotional bell-ringer. It’s a move that welcomes all kinds of scrutiny, is liable to get me fired, and is exactly what this snake wants to see happen.

  “Hollinger is not getting fired.”

  “That’s a mistake, Colby.”

  “So you say,” I tell him, no longer interested in this conversation.

  “I don’t understand why you continue to protect him, especially now that you know what he’s really been up to.”

  “We are at war with an enemy determined to defeat us on the battlefield and kill our citizens at home, Garrett. Whether you like it or not, Hollinger is the best analyst we have. I can bring him back into the fold. If our last tactic failed to convince him what he is doing is wrong, I will find one that does. He deserv―”

  “He’s a liability,” Garrett objects. “He’s been a liability since the day you hired him. Now you’re doubling down on the mistake. Is that how you want to be remembered when they show you the door for incompetence?”

  Garrett is pushing the limits of my patience. He manages to infuriate me more successfully than any human being on this planet. As much as I want to justify my actions to him, it’s futile and, ultimately, counterproductive.

  “He’s not getting fired, Garrett. We’re going to do what we need to do to rein him in and get him back to work. Do you understand me?”

  “Yeah, I understand you. I’m not sure others will when you have to justify that decision to them.”

  .

  ~ chapter 13 ~

  GINa aTTison

  “It’s all over the news now. How bad is it?” I ask the senator as he storms into the outer office from the hallway.

  “It’s bad,” he replies, motioning me to follow into his inner office.

  He goes for his lower desk drawer where he keeps the Macallan scotch. Known as a teetotaler by most of his colleagues, he keeps the bottle and a pair of glasses out of sight like we were still in the Prohibition era. It only comes out when his stress level reaches epic proportions. After spending the last six months on his staff, I’ve only seen it happen one other time.

  “I’m asking a lot from you to be here so late on a Saturday night,” he asks me while pouring us a pair of drinks.

  “It’s not a problem, sir. My fiancé isn’t home anyway.”

  “Out with the boys?”

  “Something like that,” I tell him with a smile. I don’t want to have to explain that he is with another woman having crazy dreams analyzed. This is the man in charge of Senate oversight of our intelligence agencies, and Boston is an employee of one of them.

  “By tomorrow morning, news is going to break that several high-profile sheikhs in the Anbar province were killed in an ambush while travelling to meet an American delegation at al-Asad Airbase.”

  “My God,” I blurt out. My mind starts racing. That was the base Boston had just left when his convoy was hit by the IED ambush.

  “They were previously a part of Sons of Iraq. Have you heard of the group?”

  “I’ve heard them mentioned. They were a group of local citizens who supported the current regime by serving as auxiliary police forces. They disbanded after the Islamic State took over the area.”

  “They were instrumental to us implementing our strategy in Iraq back then,” the senator adds. “These groups previously passively supported the insurgency at a minimum, but decided to work with the Coalition and Iraqi government after the surge during the Iraq War. Since ISIS moved in, we’ve been trying to enlist their help unsuccessfully in the fight against them.”

  “And since they were on their way to al-Asad, I assume that changed?” I ask, trying to put the pieces together.

  “I can’t go into too much detail because it’s classified, but yes. They were feeling left out when we started wholesale arming of the Kurds, and we changed direction on that. We were going to meet to arrange the transfer of arms for the fight against ISIS.”

  “And now that won’t happen.”

  The senator exhales, finishes the scotch in his glass, and pours himself another. This must be really bad. What could be worse than that for the war effort?

  “The sheikhs were all killed, as were their security personnel, but there were others with them in that convoy.”

  “Americans?”

  “Two of them. We believe they were taken during the ambush.”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “I can’t say. I’m sure the media will find out soon enough. The reason I’m telling you is that there is a very strong belief that the Islamic State was tipped off about the meeting.”

  “You are already having the Director of National Intelligence investigate that possibility, right?”

  “Yes. That’s the problem. Once this goes public, and it will in very short order, there is going to be an incredible backlash in this country. We all look incompetent in how we’ve handled this threat, and are looking worse with every failed operation. I want you to tell me your opinion on what my political liability is.”

  The question throws me a little off guard. We’re facing a serious national security threat and he’s worried about his reelection chances! I want to get upset, but then I remember this is precisely why he hired me. I am the one he turns to when he needs answers to these types of questions.

  “You’re going to take a hit depending on how the public responds to this. Most of your constituents have no idea you sit on this committee or what your job is on it. However, if the media latches onto you as a scapegoat, the narrative will be that you are incompetent and you will have to defend all of your actions during the next campaign cycle.”

  “I can do that,” he argues, taking another sip of his scotch.

  “You can, but you won’t want to. The ideal situation is you find the mole quickly, and then you can take the credit for it.”

  “I should take the credit? I’m not doing the investigation, the FBI is,” he argues.

  “Only because you showed courage in ordering them to,” I respond, still upset I have to play this game with him.

  “What if it takes them months or years to find the mole leaking our secrets to the enemy?”

  There is legitimate concern on his face. The only problem is I don’t know if it’s out of disquiet for those who are in harm’s way or for the prospects of his own political career. I would hope it’s the former and not the latter, but I have a feeling that hope won’t be realized.

  “Senator, I need to be honest with you,” I confess, getting his undivided attention. “You know my fiancé is in the DIA?”

  “Yes, I remember you mentioning that.”

  “Well, he’s been looking into the possibility of there being a mole in the ranks.”

  “How long has this been going on?” he demands.

&
nbsp; “Since he got hired there a year and a half ago. He believes that someone in that agency had insurgents target his Humvee when he was in Iraq because of the nature of the information he had with him.”

  “Okay. I didn’t realize he was in counterintelligence.”

  “He isn’t, sir. He’s an analyst.”

  “I’m confused, Gina. Why is he investigating anything, then? Why didn’t he turn over what he knew to his superiors?”

  “That’s exactly what he did, Senator. Only they never listened to him. So he’s been quietly acting on his own in addition to doing his own job.”

  “And you’re bringing this up to me because he’s landed himself in trouble?” the senator queries, prompting me to get to the point.

  “He is, but that’s not why I’m telling you. I’m telling you because he’s been ignored by his bosses from the beginning. They never bothered to even make an inquiry into his allegations. Now that they know he’s acting unilaterally, they’re trying to shut his investigation down and silence him. You can read that any way you like, sir, but it seems to me that someone over at the DIA trying to ensure this mole is never found.”

  “That’s one hell of an accusation,” he observes.

  “This isn’t a time to be timid, sir.”

  “He needs to stop any investigation he is doing outside of channels,” the senator commands.

  “I know. He won’t stop though, at least not completely. Not until he’s convinced the intelligence community is committed to finding the mole that almost got him killed in Iraq and is getting others killed now.”

  “And you think I can help with that?”

  “I think it would serve both our purposes. I don’t want Boston to lose his job over this, and you need a quick resolution to this investigation to avoid political fallout. I have faith that our counterintelligence assets will find the truth, but they may need you to intervene. If there are obstacles over there preventing us from getting the answers we need, you need to ensure they get removed.”

  .